Howdy,

So you folks that live in the Bay Area all know about TechShop, right?

http://techshop.ws/index.html

It looks pretty amazingly sweet. I'm amazed its there at all.

Mark

Wow, that would be sweet. Expensive, but sweet.

Heck, compared to the cost of building, equipping (to a tiny fraction of the capabilities of that shop), powering, and possibly heating/cooling a shop, that's not such a bad price. $1100 per year (or even $30 for a day) for access to a lift, chassis dyno, real machine shop tools (not Harbor Freight mini junk) is a bargain. Throw in the fact that you don't have to drop a stack of bills when you need some special tool for a specific task, and it's a steal.

I don't think I'd want to build a full tube chassis there, though. I assume you have to be able to cart everything away when you roll out at midnight.

I never really lived there, but was stuck in silicon valley for 9 months in the early 90s to manage a vendor. Now I want to go back

OK family, guess where we're going on for a vacation

My landlord has a space that just opened up - ground floor shop with living space upstairs. It's a 1/2hr drive to silicon valley, but 5min to the beach. ;-)

I'm with Sean, I would easily pay $30/day to just have access to a mill, lathe, and band saw if they had significant hours outside the regular 9 to 5 work day. Since I currently work at a University I have access to a full machine shop, and believe me I take advantage of it. But when that ends in less then a year, I'm going to look for my own mill, lathe, and band saw. If something like this existed around here, I would easily pay and forget buying and maintaining my own equipment.

What a great concept, and I wish them the most success. My question is how they handle a user breaking a very expensive machine (i.e. a member crashes the turret into the lathe after hours, but doesn't say anything to the shop manager)? Who pays for it? Is it the honor system?

I don't know how they do it. I have a hard time letting certain friends work in my shop, let alone complete strangers??

you just stress releaved my vice grips!

My tools are greasy and laying all over the shop!

There is a puddle of oil in the middle of the floor and my friend is gone!

You idiot do you know how to not ruin drill bits?!?!

You going to do ____ with that tool?

Where's my flashlight (days later)?

Howdy,

Yeah, it seems pretty crazy that it would be able to succeed to me as well. It'd be pretty easy to tear up $100 worth of cutters alone in a month, particularly if you didn't know what you were doing really. Or what happens if you've got a car on the lift and get screwed badly enough that you can't really get it off the lift and out of the way.

But... A friend of mine belongs and says its going quite well. I dunno what they do it terms of pre-screening folks or whatever.

I'd pay that per month to have access to the machining/welding/fabrication equipment alone, without any of the supplied consumables.

Mark